Broken Core
by X6Herbius
Summary: When a preoccupied nurse and his frustrated girlfriend fall out, the consequences are deeper and darker than either of them could have imagined.
1. Hidden Concerns

**This is something I've been working on since the beginning of September and, while only a fraction of the way through, I thought would be useful to upload to somewhere where I can play with the chapter breaks, possibly get feedback as I go along, etc.**

**I had qualms about whether to upload it to FictionPress or to here, but since strictly speaking it's a fanfic I decided here would be better (the story category's as close as I could make it). It's a story I came up with based around the many anthropomorphic aliases of Renard Queenston, a Canadian music producer (Google him) and originally modelled on the structure of the songs on one of his albums, _Broken Core._ Hence, a prerequisite is that the readers assume from the start that we are dealing with anthropomorphic characters and not humans; indeed, for the sites that I'm planning to submit this to when it's finished anthro characters are the norm.**

**One note/disclaimer: I am aware that Renard (the central character) is used as an ID for the music producer in question, and so I feel I need to make clear that the events in this story is in no way intended to represent him or his personality. Renard and Jackal are characters property of the original Renard and all other characters are plot devices; the story takes place in an entirely different "universe" to the characters created by Renard and are just my interpretation of how the rather fascinating "voodoo nurse" persona could have come about.**

**Lastly: read and enjoy.**

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><p>"So what's up now?"<p>

The cold November evening frost sparkled in the light of a street lamp that was lazily flickering by the side of the pavement. Underneath it strolled two figures, both wrapped up well against the biting cold: both were foxes, one brown with blond hair, clothed in a scarf and a long, dark woollen coat whose lower hem rested just above her knees, and the other in a brilliant white faux-fur jacket that hung like a second pelt over his curious blood-red fur. His head protruded above the thick collar, dark silky strands of hair and two long and delicately pointed ears framing the sharp features of his face, and his narrow, piercing golden eyes coloured his stare with a persistent slyness. He spoke calmly but clearly, a flat and deliberate tone that cut crisply through the air like a knife edge, though to his question his long, fair-haired partner gave no reply. She carried on walking, her nose buried in the folds of the scarf to escape the bitter cold, her eyes down, apparently in deep thought.

"Gel, you've not spoken since we left. I don't see what the problem is."

Still silence. The two crossed the now quiet entrance to a public car park, the girl stalking ahead, her counterpart trailing exasperatedly in her wake. The girl kept her stare fixed indifferently on the ground in front of her, not having shown any signs of registering the attempts at conversation.

"Angelina - "

"Shame you weren't so keen on conversation two hours ago," Angelina hissed from beneath her scarf. The fox in the white coat, attempting to grab hold of one of her gloved hands, looked puzzled.

"I don't know what you - "

"Renard, if you're going to take me out on a make-up date, at least try and pretend I'm more interesting than Bruce Willis' three hundredth appearance in a run-and-gun action movie." Angelina glowered fiercely at the floor as if it had done her a great personal wrong. "We've barely spoken at all this evening. You were more absorbed in your pizza than you were in me."

Renard's puzzled face fell and he quickened his pace to fall into step beside her. "Look, I'm sorry, I didn't have time to eat earlier, I was working late in intensive care with Drax - "

Angelina spun round to face him, glaring. "Drax? You mean - "

"Yes, Jackal's friend Drax," Renard muttered curtly. He had an inkling of where this conversation was going already.

"Renard, you know I feel about - "

"I am perfectly aware of your opinions on Jackal," Renard growled through gritted teeth. The two of them had entered a narrow, dark alleyway, beyond which the rumble and bustle of the main road on a Friday evening was drawing steadily closer. "Just because _you_ aren't keen on him doesn't mean I'm going to avoid contact with him."

"But he's unstable!" Angelina exclaimed. "You've seen those uniforms he goes around in, he takes pride in it! Who on Earth does that? The hospital have even banned him from the premises after that incident in the summer, and I'm surprised they haven't done the same for Drax as well! I'm telling you, Jackal is dangerous - "

"He's still family!"

They emerged onto the brightly lit high street. Angelina swerved over to the far side of the pavement, away from the shop fronts and wandering pedestrians, but Renard ploughed his way through after her. A red number 120 bus thundered past, causing Angelina to halt the conversation until they could hear each other again.

"That's hardly the only reason you two hang around, though, is it?" she continued after a second or two. "What do you _do_ for hours on end? What if you're coming around to - " She paused for a second and lowered her voice. " - to what _he's_ into?"

"What?" Renard flinched, offended. Why couldn't she understand? "That's absurd! In case you hadn't noticed I tend to spend my time healing people, which is the exact opposite to that kind of sadistic shit - "

"Then why are you two so interested in each other?"

"Oh, I don't know, maybe because we both do that weird and kinky thing called _music__production_ - " Renard's clawed hands mimed quote marks and Angelina raised her voice to remain heard over the ongoing rumble of traffic, rolling her eyes in mock stupidity.

"Oh yeah, how could I forget that! What little time you don't end up whiling away in that medical ward of yours you spend locked up in that shack you call a studio, fiddling with knobs and sidechains and God knows what else - "

"Well _excuse__me_ for having a job!" Renard snarled back indignantly, feeling his blood-red ears and tail bristling. "They both bring in the money, which is rather important considering how much of it's being wasted on paying for frankly pretty worthless nights out at the cinema!"

They were approaching a busy junction near the centre of town. Renard was thankful that they would soon be parting their separate ways: he longed to get home to some peace and quiet as quickly as possible. Things had not at all gone according to plan.

"Well it's no wonder they're worthless!" Angelina shrieked, indifferent to the small number of odd looks she was now attracting from passers-by. "We went to see _Die__Hard,_ for God's sake! Who takes their girlfriend out to see fucking _Die__Hard?_"

"What, would you rather have watched _Freddy's__Dead?_ Because they were both showing and I know which one I'd rather have seen!"

"Of course, the blood-soaked slasher you've already watched nine times, I quote! Honestly, between music, medicine and Hollywood you'd think I didn't exist!"

"Oh, OK then!" Renard strode ahead of Angelina towards the rapidly approaching road crossing but kept his incensed eyes glued to hers. Enough was enough. "Since my spare time obviously isn't enough to keep you happy, maybe I shouldn't bother! Maybe we should just go our separate ways - "

"Renard, watch it -"

" - and I can just go back to music and medicine and you'd be happy again - "

He was struggling to make himself heard over Angelina's sudden scream.

" - because if that's what you wan- "

Then suddenly there was a smash, and pain, and noise, and the world was wrenched upside down, and the air was full of alarms and cries and rushing water, and the golden disembodied street lamps were swallowed by a black hole into suffocating darkness.


	2. In Strange Care

**Due to FF's apparently awful text formatting system, I can't place asterisks where I want them in order to indicate the passing of time, so I used [-] instead.**

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><p>A splash, and a searing, numbing chill. Panic.<p>

Renard's eyes snapped open. Ice-cold water pressed in from all angles, the bright surface glimmering inches from his face, sound muffled and distorted, indistinct, unintelligible. He tried to reach out, but he couldn't move; he tried to draw in air, but he couldn't breathe; and he was sinking, falling, the water's surface becoming more and more distant, and a persistent sharp bleeping, ringing out for all to hear, was counting down the remaining seconds he had to live.

Words murmured on the freezing tide drifted past his ears, snippets from a hidden world. _"Cranial trauma...haemorrhage...transfusion...oxygen...breathing..."_ He _wanted_ to breathe, he _had_ to breathe, but the merciless arctic water would not let him do so. He frantically tried to struggle against it but his paralysed body wouldn't respond, and the pain in his chest was growing while the loud bleeping became slower and slower, and the light from above fainter and fainter, and the dread and the panic were enveloping him, and a long flat tone filled his ears, and his lungs were going to rupture and burst if he _did not breathe -_

Then someone in the darkness shouted _"Clear!"_ and Renard felt his heart rip in two.

[-]

And suddenly there was air. Renard felt it fill his lungs almost of its own accord, and he gasped mouthfuls of it like he'd never experienced the feeling of breathing before. He could feel the aching pain in his chest slowly receding, the frenzied panic draining away to be replaced with a great sense of relief. It was alright, he was safe, the crushing water had gone - but where? Where had it come from? Where were the noises, the bright lights on the high street? Where was Angelina?

Now that he was able to think a little more clearly, Renard was having trouble making sense of what had just happened. He could remember arguing with with Angelina, and the glowing, bustling street was imprinted as vividly on his memory as if he were looking at a photograph, and they had been about to cross the road - but after that there was nothing. It was a strange sensation, as if he'd just woken up after a deep sleep and the memories of the previous day were taking a while to return. Renard knew he had shouted but wasn't sure of why - perhaps it had been something vaguely related to Jackal - and he thought he could remember stepping out onto the main road.

But if the last place he had been was the high street in the centre of town, where was he now?

With the slightest inkling of dread Renard tried to call on his senses, paying attention to them for the first time since he'd escaped the icy water, but his eyes and ears seemed to be taking a long time to respond. It was like there was nothing to see, no sounds on the air to listen to, not even a whisper of wind to stir the tips of his fur anywhere on his body. The more he tried to stare, to seek out any source of light, the more he wondered whether his eyes really were working at all. Everything was coming back blank - no temperature, no gravity, no pulse. Renard couldn't even get a sense of where his own body was; it was as if the darkness had swallowed him whole. Nothing remained but his thoughts, along with a complete and intense sense of isolation.

Then, out of the formless abyss, a voice called out as if the speaker were shouting down a long tunnel, the sound fighting its way into Renard's consciousness. It was Angelina.

_"Renard, I'm here!"_

The sound of her oddly sorrowful cry flooded Renard with relief. He tried to call back but couldn't find his voice - but it was OK, she'd found him in whatever pitch black corner he was lying in, and that was all that mattered for now. He'd probably fallen down some open manhole without looking where he was going - the icy water must have been the winter rainwater in the drainage tunnel, and maybe he'd been knocked unconscious for a minute or two and was still struggling to come round, and the faceless voices had been - had been pedestrians or something, people trying to help, not enemies, not monsters; there was no reason to be alarmed, the fear that was growing formlessly inside his head was irrational, was nonsense -

Renard wrenched his attention back to Angelina. He needed to focus, he needed to _think_ -

A few murmured, unintelligible words from a different voice swirled around in the inky blackness and Angelina shouted again, though this time apparently not to Renard.

_"I know that, but he can still hear me, I know he can!"_

Yes, of course he could hear her - if only someone would send a torch down or something, just so he could _see_ where he was, see something other than nothing at all, feel anything other than the stubborn, ungrounded panic that was refusing to leave his head -

_"People in comas can still hear, can't they?"_

A coma? But that was nonsense. He was only lying in a gutter somewhere, waiting to be found. Why was Angelina the only one he could hear? Where were the rest of the noises from the street?

_"Wake up, Renard! Please wake up!"_

And suddenly gravity had returned. Renard felt himself being dragged, slipping into oblivion, dread overwhelming him as Angelina's desperate cries intermingled with sobs, growing pathetic and faint. The force was too powerful to overcome. His feeble thoughts were being engulfed by the smothering void. This wasn't right. This couldn't be happening. Someone, anyone -

_"Renard! Don't leave me!"_

Falling, rushing, a sudden flash of light.

[-]

The flickering of the many candles felt incredibly relaxing. They sprawled soft shadows over Renard's bedroom walls, glittered in the reflections on the window panes through which a golden harvest moon shone with splendid vigour. The room was warm and cosy, the double bed enticing, an acoustic guitar twinkling quietly from a clock radio on the bedside table. On the edge of the bed, dressed in a dark, smart jacket and trousers as if he'd just returned from a dinner or party, Renard sat with Angelina's head laid playfully upon his shoulder. The red dress she wore hung gracefully from her shoulders, blending in with the sleepily flickering candle light. They were both smiling at each other, nestled away from the rest of the world in a quiet corner of their own.

"Renard, that was a fantastic evening," Angelina sighed, winding a delicate finger around a silky black strand of his hair, gazing lovingly into his bright golden eyes. "The restaurant, the live music, dancing, singing... It was such good fun. How on Earth did you manage to organise it all?"

"I have my contacts," Renard hinted with a secretive smile. "The music business has its perks sometimes. I thought we needed an evening out together again like we used to, to enjoy ourselves, just me and you. Because - " Renard sighed, placing Angelina's free hand in his. It was as if there were a heavy weight on his shoulders that even an evening full of light-hearted entertainment couldn't dissolve. "Because I know you've been unhappy lately. We've hardly seen each other in the past three weeks, and work has been busy but I know that I get caught up in it all and forget about you. I get so preoccupied with day-to-day life that I forget you're the one who makes it special. I'm sorry, Gel."

"Oh, don't be stupid, honey." Angelina dismissed him condolingly, reaching up to kiss his cheek. "I know how hectic things can be, you don't have to apologise."

"I know, but I want to. I'm aware of how separate we can become sometimes, and I just want to make sure you know how important you are to me." Renard paused, remembering. The images in his head were faint, barely detectable, but the emotions they accompanied were stronger than ever. It was if a voice inside his head wanted to speak for him: _Remember how real it was. Remember how trapped you felt._

Gathering his thoughts, he ploughed ahead.

"I had a dream a few weeks ago. I dreamt that I'd taken you out to see a film, some stupid action movie or something, and I wasn't really paying as much attention to you as I should have been, and you were unhappy because you felt like I didn't care about you. We got into an argument on the way home and we ended up shouting at each other, and all I felt like I wanted to do was to go home but I stepped into the road without looking, and - "

Renard faltered briefly, turned his head to hide his suddenly watery eyes. For a moment it felt amazing that the girl who meant so much to him could be sitting beside him right now, holding him close. It seemed like an eternity since they had had any time alone with each other.

"I think I got hit, and I heard you crying out when I was stuck in a dark, cold place, and you said I was in a coma, and I knew the last thing I'd said to you before I got knocked down was that - was that I didn't want to be with you any more."

"Oh, Ren." He felt Angelina's thumb delicately brush away the single tear that had escaped onto his cheek. She stared up at him, evidently concerned. Some kind of understanding was stirring behind her beautiful brown eyes but it didn't ease the feeling of regret, of guilt, that was pervading his mind. Their candlelit shadows quivered slightly in the still, quiet evening air while the solitary guitar lamented from the bedside radio.

"You're all I have, Angelina. Sometimes I forget that, and it scares me to think that I could be taken from this world without you knowing how much I love you. Just remember that no-one is more special to me than you are."

Suddenly, Renard felt himself being pulled into a tight hug. He clutched Angelina's shoulders, feeling more tears burning the insides of his eyelids. As long as he had her, as long as he was able to hold her, he'd be OK. It still disconcerted him how real the dream had seemed, how terrified he had felt as he'd slipped into the crushing darkness, how Angelina's desperate cry had echoed in his cavernous mind -

All of a sudden Renard felt Angelina freeze in his embrace, fixated on something over his shoulder. "Wait..."

Her disconcerted tone caught Renard by surprise. She sounded cautious, her voice jarring with the comfortable mood. "What's the matter?"

"The music's stopped."

She was right. The melodious acoustic guitar had ceased playing, the silence strangely vacuous now that Angelina had drawn attention to it.

Renard felt nonplussed. "So? The station's probably finished for the night. I can switch it to another one if you want - "

"No, I mean it's just - I'm having the strangest sense of deja-vu." Angelina resisted Renard's attempt to pull her back into an embrace. She looked troubled.

"Deja-vu of what?"

"You're not the only one who's been having strange dreams." Angelina's eyes had become restless, sweeping the room as if it would disappear if she didn't keep it in her sights. "For the past three weeks I've had the same nightmare happen sometime in the night, but it's usually too faint to recall by the time I wake up. All of a sudden I can remember the candles in this room, the full moon, the guitar music - it's exactly the same. I don't know why I didn't recognise all this before - "

Suddenly, Angelina froze again and pointed to the bedside table. "Look at the clock."

Renard turned and glanced at the digital display. Twelve midnight was flashing steadily, blinking at him like a distress signal in the dimly lit bedroom. It didn't usually flash like that.

"Renard, I've seen this before. I don't like it." Angelina's unsteady voice carried a note of conviction, but Renard couldn't fathom why she was acting so strangely.

"Angelina, it's just broken." He picked up the clock and hammered a couple of the buttons on top, to no avail. "See? Look, tell me what's wrong. I know how real dreams can seem, believe me, but we're safe here, you're safe with me - "

This time it was Renard's turn to stop mid-sentence. With a frown, he left Angelina momentarily perched tentatively on the edge of the bed and strode over to the bedroom door. The area where the door handle had been when he had shut the door not fifteen minutes ago was now simply bare, varnished wood.

"Wha- where'd it go?"

The question sounded stupid coming out of his mouth. The previously unremarkable silence now appeared sinister, muffled, unnatural, and the air felt cool and clammy. Something wasn't right at all.

"OK, Angelina, what's going on?" Renard ventured cautiously. "What did you dream?"

Angelina remained motionless on the side of the bed, staring out of the window at the massive, glaring harvest moon. She didn't speak.

"Angelina, tell me!"

Renard hurried over to her, grasping both her shoulders. Her eyes were vacant, saucer-like, reflecting the light from the window. She spoke three words.

"Renard, I'm scared."

"Scared of what?"

"The dark. The dark is coming." Angelina swallowed, clutched the sleeve of Renard's jacket. A strange rushing noise was coming from somewhere, like a massive waterfall, swelling from the walls, drifting up from the floor.

"Angelina, tell me what you saw!"

Angelina's petrified eyes were glued to Renard's. He could hardly make out her faint whisper over the constant churning of water.

"Nothing. I was dead."

Suddenly, the candles lining the edges of the room were extinguished in a flurry of darkness. The rushing of the water had drowned Renard's ears; stumbling, disoriented, he thrust his arms out into the noise, trying to feel Angelina's touch, reach the spot in front where she had only just been clinging to his arm. The air tasted of smoke and soot; struggling to breathe, he tried to cry out into the space that was so terribly devoid of light, but could barely hear his own voice.

Then, all at once, Renard was on his knees. Light had flooded back into the bedroom, the haunting moon casting a slide of light over the stained, carpeted floor. A terrible scream rent the air - a scream that was his, as he stared horrified down at his clawed hands that were now dripping in blood, at Angelina's lifeless body spread-eagled over his lap, her dress torn and her breast bleeding, her eyes frozen open.

[-]

Silence had fallen. He was here again. The deep blackness of the void was all too familiar.

It felt like a tremendous effort even to think; Renard sprawled exhausted, dizzy and sluggish as if he'd just awoken from a deep and powerful slumber, vivid colours and emotions trickling through his brain and past his mind's eye. Something was different this time, though: there was definitely something beneath his back holding him up, some flat, cold surface residing in this desolate darkness, which meant that unlike the last time he had wound up here, Renard had a body. Even so, it was too much of an effort even to open his eyes and see what this surface was. Drawing breath came as a chore, as something urgent but detested for the way it sucked the energy out of his already numbed muscles. He was having trouble comprehending anything, even the voice - the soft, drawling, dangerous voice that suddenly rang out from above, clear enough for the speaker to be standing next to him.

"Isn't it funny, the way the universe works?"

A flutter stirred in the back of Renard's mind, a memory left over from another world. He knew that voice. It was Drax. Was he stuck here too?

"One moment you're walking along the street, and the next it points at you and says 'Ah, there you are, a happy couple. I've been looking for you.'"

Something wasn't right. More than that: something was terribly, terribly wrong. They were both workmates, they'd spent years saving the lives of others; so why was Drax's voice suddenly laced with malice? Why did he speak with the tone of a madman? Weren't they both friends? Shouldn't he be worried, be trying to help?

"And I've been waiting too, Renard. I guessed it would only be a matter of time. You always were one to...run blindly ahead. I've had your cards marked for a long while now."

Nothing of what Drax had just said made any sense to Renard's sluggish brain. Marked cards? Run blindly ahead? He didn't care - all he wanted to know was what on Earth had happened, why all these lucid and horrific images were suddenly pouring through his mind - an orb-like moon reflected in Angelina's eyes, a cold white door, blood, screaming - why couldn't he remember where they had come from?

"They know, and she will visit you, the pearlescent bride. Things will change. Of course, even then there's no certainty that you'll escape alive, but if you refuse her demands then I won't hold my breath waiting for you to come round."

_Drax, please. It's me, it's Renard. We've known each other for years. How do I get out of here? Where are you? What's going on? Please tell me..._

"When Jackal was, shall we say, 'exiled,' I was not. The hospital didn't want to let me go, you see: they told me I was uncannily effective in intensive care, and only my patients know my secret. I daresay you will know too, in time."

_Drax, help me..._

"See you soon, Renard."


End file.
